Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1887-1890, 1887-12-10


laws, the various, inequitable and il
legal source of necessary taxation, ought
to be at once revised and amended.
These laws, as their primary and plain eff
feet, raise the price to consumers of all
articles imported and subjected to duty,
by precisely the sum paid for such duties.
Thus the amount of the duty measures
the tax paid by those who purchase for use
these imported articles. Many of these
| things, however are raised or manufac-
tured in our own country, and the tariff
now levied upon foreign goods and pro-
ducts are called
PROTECTION TO THESE HOME MANUFAc-
TUREs,
because they render it possible for
those of our people who are manufactu-
| rers, to make these taxed articles and sell
| them for price equal to that demanded
for imported goods, that have paid duty.
THE TARIFF ON WOOL.
He Ithe farmerl is told that high duty
on imported WOO. is necessary for the ben
eft of those who have sheep to shear, in
| order that the price of their wool may be
increased. They, of course, are not re-
| minded that the farmer who has no sheep
is by this scheme obliged, in his purchase
of clothing and woolen goods, to pay trib-
ute to his fellow farmer as well as to the
| manufacturer and II erchant; nor is any
! mention made of the fact that the sheep
owners themselves and their households
| must wear clothing and use other articles
manufactured from wool they sell at tar
iff prices, and thus as consumers
MUST RETURN THEIR SHARE ~
of this increased price to the tradesman
| think it may be fairly assumed that a
| large proportion of the sheep owned by
the farmers Of the country are found in
| small hocks, numbering from % to 90
The duty on the grade of imported wool
| which these sheep yield is 10 cents each
pound; if of the value of 80 cents or less,
-.
If the liberal amount of six pounds be al
lowed for each fleece, the duty thereon
would be SO or 72 cents: and this may be
taken as the utmost enhancement of its
price to the farmer by reason of the duty.
Eighteen dollars would thus represent the
increased price OF the wool from 25 sheep
,,xA ff,nt fto, ,>c
and at present values this addition would
amount to about one-third its price. Ii on
its sale the farmer receives this, or less
tariff profit, the wool leaves his hands
charged with precisely that sum, which in
all its changes will adhere to it until it
reaches the consumer.
When manufactured into cloth and
other goods and material for use, its cost
is not only increased to the extent of the
farmers tariff profit, but further sum
has been added for the benefit of the man.
ufacturer under the operation of other
tariff laws. In the meantime the day ar
rives when the farmer finds it necessary
to purchase WOODEN goods and materials
to clothe himself and family for the win
ter. When he faces the tradesman for
that purpose, he discovers that he is oblig-
ed not only to return, in the way of in
creased prices, his tariff profit on the wool
he sold, and which then lies before him
in manufactured form, but that he must
add considerable sum thereto to meet
a further increase in cost caused by a
tariff duty on the manufacture. Thus in
the end he is aroused to the fact that he
has paid on a moderate purchase, as re-
suit of the tariff scheme which, when he
sold his wool, seemed SO profitable, an
increase in the price more than sufficient
to
SWEEP AWAY ALL THE TARIFF PROFIT
he received upon the wool he produced
and sold. When the number of farmers
engaged in wool raising is compared with
all the farmers in the country, and the
small proportion they bear to our Iopula-
ton is considered; when it is made appar-
ent that In the case OF large part of
those who own sheep the benefit of the
present tariff on wool is small, and, above
all, when it must be conceded that the in
crease OF the cost of living caused by such
tariff becomes burden upon those with
moderate means and the poor, the unem-
pleyed, the sick and well, and the young
and old, and that it constitutes tax
which, with relentless grasp is fastened
upon the clothing of every man, woman
and child in the land, reasons are sug-
gested why the removal or reduction OF
this duty should be included in revision
of our tariff laws.
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